


god-like powers of hope, or love, or indigestion, or whatever

by Ptolemia



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, M/M, and I will then be respectfully completely ignoring this tone, canon compliant if canon was a human body and i was jared hopworth remolding it to my will, canon compliant if canon was a ritual and i was gertrude robinson with a shitload of dynamite, canon compliant if canon was jurgen leitner and i was elias wielding a pipe, in order to provide the world with the objectively absurd fluff that I think we all need, this is a fic where I will be understanding that the tone of the show is horror based and grim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27636209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ptolemia/pseuds/Ptolemia
Summary: Jon and Martin stumble upon a nice looking cottage out in the middle of the apocalypse - obviously this is deeply suspicious and they are both very concerned.In summary: everything is good, actually, everyone is totally ok and alive and enjoying their kayaking trip, and this is all going to have a happy ending because I know the podcast itself won't - and while I respect that, I exist only for the purpose of writing absurdist fluff. Enjoy!
Relationships: Agnes Montague/Gertrude Robinson, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 20
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

“What the hell is that?” says Jon, after a moment.

Martin squeaks, and jumps slightly, as if he’d managed to forget Jon was there in the thirty seconds since he last spoke. He gathers himself with a faint nervous flush as he straightens his glasses - “I, uh – oh, you see it too?”

“The…” Jon regards the sight that looms out of the barren mist before them with an expression of bone-deep distrust, “The… nice-looking little cottage? Yes. I see it. And I don’t trust it.”

Next to him, Martin has started fiddling fretfully with the hem of his shirt. “Could be another place like Salesa’s, I guess? Might be a chance to rest up.”

“Perhaps. I rather got the impression that Salesa’s setup was… something of a one-off, though.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Still,” says Jon, blatant mistrust dripping from his every syllable. “This looks… lovely.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Well proportioned. Fresh paint job… thatch roof looks to be in good nick, well established garden round the side…” Martin chews his lip absent-mindedly, frowning at the unassuming little cottage with an expression of deep-seated suspicion. “Oh, why does that make me so much more concerned than a regular old, I don’t know… monster made of human bodies, or a pit full of teeth, or an endless war zone, or something? You know, normal stuff. Or- well, _here_ normal, anyway.”

“Hmm,” says Jon, who can’t help but agree with Martin that the seemingly innocuous cottage is definitely one of the more unnerving things they’ve seen in a while. “Maybe it’s a- a ploy of some sort. Something like the anglerfish, perhaps… only that can’t be right, we’ve already been through…” he tails off with a frustrated huff of air, eyes fixed on the cottage. Surely at some point there will be screaming, or blood spattering up the windows, or the whole building will grow legs and try to eat them, or…

“The Web, maybe?” says Martin.

“Maybe,” says Jon, but somehow he’s not convinced.

“Or- erm, you don’t think it could be- no, never mind.”

John cocks his head. “What?”

“Well – I mean, something that looks sort of like a place we found which was nice and safe but then maybe isn’t all it seems… it’s a bit. Well. Could be distortion-y. Spiral-esque. _Helen-ish_. Right?”

“Helen’s dead.”

“Yeah, or that’s what she wants you to think. I mean, lying is kind of her whole thing, right?”

“I- hmm. Good point. We should… I think she’s gone, but it’s probably wise to be wary.”

“Probably. I kind of liked Helen, though,” says Martin, absently - and then he scratches his nose, expression thoughtful. “You know, all the murder and the deceit and the manipulation notwithstanding. Maybe we should check it out. I mean, I might get a nap in at least before we get brutally murdered.”

John raises an eyebrow. “Oh, sad you missed out on the honeymoon suite, huh?”

Martin snorts. “Look, fine, yes, I miss having a bed and getting a chance to actually _sleep_ , ok? You may have existed on cigarettes and statements even prior to all this, but some of us quite enjoyed the chance to get a solid eight hours in. If there’s a chance this place is something like Salesa’s…”

“Point taken. Hmm. It _does_ look nice, doesn’t it?”

“It does! I mean, maybe it actually is just a nice spot to take a break and-” begins Martin, only to cut himself off with another alarmed squeak when a light flicks on in the lower front window.

They both lean in a little, craning their necks to get a better look at the figure which appears at the window, backlit by the warm light that spills out onto the climbing rose at the front of the cottage. Jon is abruptly aware how little cover they have, and is about to tell Martin to move back when the figure turns around, and briefly faces the window before shuffling over to the sink, kettle in hand.

She’s only facing toward him for a fraction of a second, but Jon would know that face anywhere – standing in front of a kitchen sink, calmly filling up a kettle in a quaint old cottage in the middle of the apocalypse, is Gertrude fucking Robinson. He stares as she puts the kettle down and switches it on, and slowly potters over toward one of the cabinets, pulling a tea-bag out of its box with one hand as she stifles a yawn with the other.

“What,” he says, with great feeling, “the _fuck_?”

“Is- is that Gertrude?” says Martin, sounding about as baffled as Jon feels.

Jon glares balefully at the dressing-gown clad figure, who now appears to be pulling a face and attempting to ignore what looks like a pretty significant chunk of last-night’s dishes, stacked but clearly still dirty on the sideboard. “It certainly has the look down, whatever it is.”

Martin gives him a sidelong glance. “I mean, could you… could you Know if it’s…”

Jon frowns, concentrating on the figure before him, and on the cottage, and finding… “Nothing,” he says, after a moment. “Huh. Well, that’s… odd.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. I’m not sure why- well, it really could be something like Salesa’s place, I guess. And I suppose there was stuff I didn’t ever manage to Know about Elias, or the Institute, or… I don’t know, things the Eye had control over, so- I’m not sure. Perhaps if it _is_ Gertrude, that’s why I can’t…” he wrinkles his nose, trying once more to Know anything – anything at all – about this strange apparition in the middle of the devastated earth, and once more coming up blank. “Huh. Maybe it is her. How- urgh, I don’t know any more.” He sinks down slowly, until he’s squatting on the floor, head in his hands. “What does it mean? What- what is happening here?

Martin reaches down and gives his shoulder a comforting squeeze. “No idea. So we’re in the same boat, for once.”

Jon snorts. “Kind of nice, I suppose.”

“Mmm.”

He leans his head against Martin’s hand, and sighs. “What do you reckon, then?”

“What?”

“Should we go and take a look?”

“Probably,” says Martin, and then he laughs. “Hey, did you ever play knock down ginger, as a kid?”

Jon snorts, “Are you suggesting that we knock on the door of the weird creepy cottage in the middle of this hellscape – a cottage which may or may not be inhabited by my dead predecessor, no less - and then… run away?”

“Erm, yeah, basically.”

Jon laughs, at that, a proper hearty laugh like he hasn’t done since… well, not for a long while, anyway. And he says, “Martin, please. Where is your professionalism?”

Martin gives him a scandalised glare. “Professionalism?! I- Jon, you’re not my boss any more. I can suggest stupid things all I like, and you actually can’t even _threaten_ to fire me over it, so- ooh, hang on there’s someone else in there! Who’s that?”

Jon shoots upright at that, head snapping round to stare back at the cottage again.

The second figure has long, red hair, which catches the bleary early-morning kitchen light at such an angle that, for a moment, Jon almost thinks she must be on fire. He’s unnerved – and this, really, is a fairly grim sign of how life has been lately – when she shifts slightly, and that halo of the bulb slips away, and it becomes clear that she’s not on fire at all. Just… very red-headed. She’s moving a lot slower than Gertrude was, pausing at the window to half-prop herself on the sill as she yawns. Jon narrows his eyes. She looks normal. She looks _so_ normal. They both look normal! It can’t be right. She’s… there has to be something. He watches, closely, as she scratches her nose and grins back over her shoulder at Gertrude, who appears to be saying something. She’s thin, and tall in a way that makes her movement slightly ungainly – but not tall enough to look properly _wrong_ , just… regular human tall. She moves exactly how he would expect a slightly sleepy human being to move. It’s weird.

“Why do I feel like I know her from somewhere?” he says, frowning as the woman yawns again, fiddling absent-mindedly with the cord of her dressing gown as she drifts closer to the table where Gertrude is sat. Gertrude watches her like a hawk. Something about that expression feels… concerning. Intense, somehow – scared? Maybe she’s being threatened. Or-

“I know what you mean,” says Martin, and Jon tears his eyes away from studying the bizarre scene in front of them to observe the adorable little nose-wrinkle that goes with that tone of voice. “I just- I can’t think where from.”

“Hmm,” he says, trying to resist the urge to touch the bridge of Martin’s nose where it’s crinkling up under his glasses. “Something to do with one of the powers, perhaps? The institute?”

“Why are you touching my face?” says Martin.

“Oh,” says Jon, removing his hand from Martin’s nose (now un-crinkled), briefly touching his brow (newly crinkled, objectively cute), and then pulling his hand away entirely and turning back toward the cottage with as much dignity as he can muster, “Sorry, uh, I didn’t mean to do that. Uh. Hmm. What were you saying?”

Martin gives him a look of exasperated fondness. “I was saying I think I- I mean, she does look sort of familiar, right? Unless maybe she just has one of those faces. Am I thinking of an actress? I might be thinking of an actress… or it might be a statement. Did she give a statement, maybe?”

“The problem is,” says Jon, “that if I know her from a statement, I’ve probably only read about her, and people aren’t always very descriptive about…” he tails off. The more he thinks about it, the surer he is that he _has_ heard this woman described somewhere – her lanky, foalish gait, the way her auburn hair catches the light, the way…

At that moment, the red-haired woman rests a hand on the table and leans over Gertrude, abruptly gripping the neck of her nightshirt with her free hand and leaning in as if to- well, she’s threatening her, surely, but something about the gesture makes it look almost like she’s about to-

“Agnes Montague!” blurts Jon, shooting bolt upright and barely making time to grab Martin’s hand before he starts sprinting toward the cottage.

“Erm, Jon, what-” begins Martin.

Jon shakes his head. “No time! If she sets Gertrude on fire, I’ll never get to question her about- any of this! We have to- she burnt a man’s face off, once, and I really don’t rate my chances of getting a coherent statement out of somebody with recently inflicted third-degree burns.”

“Right,” says Martin, already wheezing slightly from the pace Jon’s setting, “Erm, the thing is, I don’t think that looked like a third-degree burns situation, actually, it looked like maybe-”

“Quickly!” says Jon. They’re almost at the door – it looks sturdy, which isn’t good, but between him and Martin perhaps they can get it down.

“Right, Jon, it’s just- er, I think I do recognise her from- well, when we cleared out Gertrude’s desk- Jon, hang on, slow down-”

“No time!”

“Right, but I think we should-”

Jon barrels into the door, which – much to his surprise – opens without any resistance.

“- knock,” says Martin, faintly.

Jon, at this moment, realises three things in very quick succession. One, Agnes Montague is currently kissing Gertrude. Two, Gertrude is kissing back, which would probably not be possible if her face was currently melting off.

And three, he should definitely have knocked.

Agnes squeaks, jumping back from the table and stumbling backward so that her head smacks into the lampshade hanging from the low-set cottage ceiling. Gertrude just _stares_ at them both, her expression putting Jon in mind of one of the stricter teachers from his old primary school.

“Er,” he says, because he really doesn’t have anything better to say, at this point.

“Sorry,” says Martin, because he also has nothing to say, but is inherently inclined to being a much politer sort of person than Jon is.

“What- how did you-” Agnes takes a sharp step back, stumbling into the counter and affecting what would be a very convincing display of nervousness… were it not for the steel in her eyes, and the fact that Jon is fairly certain he saw her grab a knife from the counter when she leant against it for support. “Who are you?”

“Right,” says Martin, “Um, so, first off, we’re really sorry for not knocking, um, there was a bit of a- well, ok, so- I mean, funny story really, but we actually thought that-”

Gertrude sighs, and fixes Martin with a glare that has him tailing off into apologetic silence in a matter of seconds. Then she turns her gaze to Jon. “Beholding?” she says, with the air of somebody describing an unpleasant mess their cat has made on the carpet.

Jon makes an ambivalent noise. “Uh… sort of. Well. Technically yes, I suppose.”

“Hmmph,” says Gertrude, shifting her glasses up her nose slightly as she turns her piercing gaze back onto Martin. “And… oh, goodness, you’re a mess, aren’t you? What is it – the Web? The Eye? Lonely, maybe, only…” she regards their linked hands with a curious tilt of the head. “Ah, oh dear, I see, with the anxiety and the glasses and the bad taste in men - you must be Martin, yes?”

“Yes?” he says, in a way that makes it sound like he’s not entirely sure.

Gertrude claps her hands together. “Aha! By which logic, _you_ must be Jon.”

“Bad taste in men?” says Jon, before he can stop himself.

“Well,” she says, adjusting her glasses with a faint smirk, “I’ve yet to meet anybody with _good_ taste who would make the mistake of entertaining a romantic entanglement with an Archivist.”

Agnes and Martin both make near-identical noises of disapproval at that – only Agnes follows hers up by pacing over to Gertrude, dropping a cheese knife onto the table in front of her, and saying, “Fine, well, you stab them yourself, if that’s your attitude.”

“Oh, god, please don’t stab us,” says Martin. “We’re really very sorry we didn’t knock.”

Agnes snorts. “Please, I’m joking. She’s not going to stab you.” Now he has a chance to look at her properly, Jon can see she has a gap between her front teeth, and a slightly wonky smile, and an awkward way of holding her height that softens out her sharp edges, somehow. “Not now we know who you are, in any case.”

“You will have to forgive Agnes,” says Gertrude, as Martin glances nervously toward the knife, “she has a somewhat offbeat sense of humour.”

“Yes, well, growing up as the Messiah will do that to you – very few opportunities to gather sincere feedback on your stand-up comedy.”

Martin laughs, a little nervously.

Agnes sighs, pulling open the fridge and taking out a jug of milk. “See, and that wasn’t even a joke. Ah well. Do either of you want coffee?”

“Please,” says Jon – who doesn’t normally do coffee, but feels like he might need it for this.

“Oh, um, no, that’s alright,” says Martin, fiddling nervously with the hem of his shirt as Agnes opens a cupboard and starts fetching mugs.

Jon sighs. “He wants a tea, but he’s too polite to ask.”

Agnes pauses, her hand on an oversized mug which reads _You don’t have to be dead to work here – but it helps!_ “Do you want a tea, Martin?”

“I-uh… well, if it’s not too much trouble, I suppose that would be nice.”

At which point there’s a long and profoundly awkward not-quite-silence – a pointed lack of conversation punctuated only by the sound of the kettle and the shuffle and clink of teabags and coffee beans and teaspoons in mugs. Jon tries to avoid Gertrude’s level gaze while he attempts to piece together where, exactly, to start with his line of questioning – but Martin, spurred on by sheer awkwardness and social anxiety, beats him to it. “So,” he says, gesturing between Gertrude and Agnes with a nervous enthusiasm that does little to conceal the fact that he’s totally out of his depth, “How did you two meet, then?”

“Through the wicked machinations of dark and unknowable powers beyond the comprehension of any mortal being,” says Agnes.

“Through friends,” says Gertrude, at almost exactly the same time.

They exchange a glance. “Oh, well,” says Agnes, squeezing a teabag firmly against the edge of a mug and shuffling over to the bin to throw it in, “that too, I suppose.”

“Matter of perspective, really,” agrees Gertrude.

“Well, quite,” says Agnes, turning her bright-eyed gaze to Martin. “What about you two?”

Martin splutters for a moment, glancing at Jon, and at their linked hands, with sudden embarrassed confusion, as if he’d forgotten momentarily that he was there. “I- uh, well, we were both- uh, that is, so he was working for- and I was also- well- so he was my boss, sort of, and our boss was- that is to say- erm.” His nose wrinkles, thoughtfully. “Uh, actually pretty much the same as you guys, I guess, now I think about it.”

“How sweet,” says Agnes, handing him a tea and Jon a coffee. Jon regards it suspiciously, but when he puts his hands around the mug it’s… well, it’s a bit hot to drink, just yet, but it’s… normal hot. Interesting.

Across the table, Gertrude frowns over her glasses. “Yes, yes, very touching, I’m sure. Now. If we’re quite finished discussing the matchmaking potential of the dread powers…?”

“Do you want milk in your coffee?” asks Agnes, ignoring Gertrude entirely. She fixes Jon with an expectant stare, milk jug in hand as she drifts past her grumbling… girlfriend? Partner? “I always leave room for milk,” she explains, her tone conspiratorial, “Just in case.”

Jon blinks. “Do I- oh, uh, yes. Just a little, please.”

Agnes smiles a delighted, private smile as she hovers the milk jug over Jon’s cup. It’s a Neighbourhood Watch mug, only someone has chipped the eyes out of all the people in the little yellow circle sign. “Say ‘when’!” she beams, as she begins to pour.

“When,” says Jon, slightly faintly.

Agnes laughs out loud, at that – a sound of pure, unfiltered delight that sounds almost _wrong_ in Jon’s ears after so long in the hellscape the world has become.

She turns to Gertrude with another of her lopsided grins, and says, “Did you see that? I said ‘say when’, and he said ‘when’ so I knew when to stop pouring. I always wanted to do that, back when I was a kid. And you know what? It never gets old.”

“Hmmph,” says Gertrude, with what is clearly intended to be disapproval – but there’s a fractional softening of her expression around the corners of her eyes that betrays her. Anyone looking carefully enough – and Jon is looking very carefully indeed – could see the deep-seated affection lying behind her attempt at a frown.

Agnes leans against the kitchen counter, and takes a sip of her own coffee, black. “Please,” she says, gesturing at Jon and Martin, “do sit down. And if you’d like a little breakfast, I was going to have some muesli, but there’s also-”

“Oooh,” says Martin, his eyes lighting up, “I love a good muesli – I have to ask, though, what’s the composition like? Because, I’ll be honest with you, I think you can go really astray if you get the fruit to oat balance wrong…”

Agnes waves him over toward one of the cupboards, opening it to reveal a series of large glass jars of cereals which include – from what Jon can see – at least six different types of muesli. He turns back toward Gertrude as Martin launches into an impassioned explanation of the difference between sultanas and raisins to Agnes, who looks… genuinely fascinated, for some reason.

Gertrude catches his eye and smirks faintly. “Well, that will keep them occupied for a while, I should think. I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

“Probably,” says Jon, faintly. “Look, uh, you- this is all very- I mean- _Agnes Montague?!_ ”

Gertrude sighs. “Oh, so you want to talk about dread power matchmaking too, do you?”

“No! Or- well, I just-” Jon glances over to the cupboard, where Agnes is standing, hand on her chin, regarding Martin with that strange, still stare of hers as he expounds upon the difference between rolled and regular oats. “It’s just a weird… I mean, I thought you two never even met? Or, uh, that you did, but only once, which-”

Gertrude snorts. “Oh, we met. More than once, but less than I suppose I would have liked. It wasn’t anything _domestic_ back then, of course, but we’ve always had a… connection. I should have thought something of the nature of that would be easy enough to infer from a number of the statements regarding her, which I believe you must have read, no?”

“I- well, yes, but I never picked up on… huh. Well. Congratulations, I guess.”

“Hmm,” says Gertrude, fixing him with a gaze that pins him to the chair like a butterfly to a board. “Really, I would have expected… I don’t know. Somebody a little sharper, I suppose.”

“Pardon?”

She continues, ignoring Jon’s affronted expression. “But then, I suspect that my, ah, rather hasty exit from the job must have left Elias in something of a rush to fill the position. Perhaps he simply didn’t have the time to find somebody more suitable.” She takes a sip of her tea. “Serves him right, really – he should have thought about that before he shot me.”

“Well,” says Jon, leaning in with a glare of his own, “for what it’s worth, you’re not exactly all that I expected, either.”

Gertrude raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I mean, Gertrude Robinson! Fearless, ruthless, totally dedicated to saving the world no matter the cost. Hard as nails. That’s what I thought you were. But here we are, in the middle of the apocalypse, and you’re not even raising a finger. You’ve settled down in some cutesy little cottage, with your Cath Kidston tablecloth and your roses round the door and an _avatar of the Desolation_ , for good measure. You’ve gone soft. The Gertrude I heard about was far too canny to have friends, let alone-”

“I don’t have _friends_ ,” sniffs Gertrude, clearly deeply affronted, “and as for your other accusations, I’ll have you know-”

But whatever it is she wants Jon to know, it’s cut off by a loud rap on the door. There’s a faint call of “Coming through, make yourselves decent!” before it swings open to reveal… Jon blinks. It can’t be. But, somehow, it is.

Standing in the doorway of Gertrude’s kitchen is Gerard Keay, wearing ratty pyjama trousers, an oversized band tshirt, and a large, fluffy pair of slippers with bats on them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe I wrote the plot of this fic up BEFORE the Salesa episode came out, and then had to go back and rework a whole bunch of stuff? I LOST IT when I listened to that ep I gotta say.
> 
> Also for those lesbians wondering if our evil tory door wife will be making an appearance - yes, of course, she's been kayaking with a friend and they will BOTH be rocking up asap next chapter to do Shenanigans and cause Mischief.
> 
> As ever, kudos and comments are the primary diet of the author, and are very much appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

Gerry breezes through the room to the fridge and nods at Agnes as he opens it, still yawning slightly. “I’m out of oat milk,” he says, as he helps himself to a carton, "so I'm stealing some of yours." He doesn’t seem to have noticed Jon, but after a moment his gaze lands on Martin, and he frowns. “Who’s your friend?”

“I- Gerry?” says Jon, mouth agape. He can’t… quite believe what he’s seeing.

Gerry spins around, and almost drops the oat milk. “Oh, shit, Jon! Hello!” He throws his lanky arms open wide, and grins. “Hey, come on, bring it in. I owe you one for burning that page, huh?”

Jon stumbles to his feet, still half in shock, and submits to being hugged. It’s… acceptable, actually. Maybe even nice. Mind you, that’s mostly because he gets the impression that Gerry doesn’t like hugs all too much either, and doesn’t drag it out longer than is absolutely necessary, pulling back after a moment to pat him on the shoulder and look him up and down. “I just- I didn’t see you there, I had no idea you were- oh, wait, you’re not dead, are you?”

“Uh,” says Jon, who hadn’t considered the possibility, but now feels slightly alarmed, “No, or- well, not that I know of?” He glances over at Gertrude, who shakes her head.

“No, you’re not dead. Honestly, at this point I’m not entirely sure Gerry is any more, either - which is really rather impressive, all things considered.”

“It’s a shame, really,” says Gerry, “me not being dead. Because, firstly, it means I have to put up with Gertrude again, and secondly - I mean, I don’t know if any of you have met that Oliver Banks guy but… well, I’m just saying, if I had to end up in somebody’s domain…”

Gertrude rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. There’s no need to lower the tone.”

“Yeah,” says Martin, who has instantly been drawn away from his raptures about muesli and into a state of pinch-faced fury at the mere mention of Oliver Banks, “and honestly, that Oliver guy is over-rated, anyway, if you ask me. He’s not _that_ hot.”

“No, he is,” says Gerry, ambling over to the cupboard to grab a mug and a jar of coffee, which he begins to spoon carefully into a cafetière. “He really is.”

Gertrude twists round in her chair to fix him with an irritable glare, “Did I say you could help yourself to my nice coffee, Gerry?”

“I don’t know, Gertrude,” he says, without missing a beat, “did I say you could peel the skin off my dead body and bind my soul to an evil book which I had personally expressed extreme distaste for, and then abandon me there to suffer for what was – as far as you knew - an eternity of torment?”

She turns back to face the table with a resigned sigh. “Oh, alright, point taken. Just make sure you seal the bag properly before you put it away, please.”

“Sure. Hey, do you want one?”

“A coffee? No, no thank you – I’ll have another tea though, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind, actually,” says Gerry – but he puts the kettle back on all the same, and goes to grab a mug and a teabag from one of the nearby cabinets.

Gertrude shakes her head as she turns back to Jon. “Now, what was I saying…”

“You were telling me about how you don’t have any friends. And then you got interrupted by your friend turning up.”

“Hmm. I suppose I see myself as more of a maternal figure to Gerry than a friend, but-”

“It’s true,” says Gerry, cheerfully, “right down to the flagrant disrespect for my wishes and personal autonomy! Amazing, really.”

“Yes, that’s quite enough of that, thank you Gerry.”

“We are friends though, as well.” He hands her a cup of tea. “Against my better judgement, I might add.”

“Hmmph,” says Gertrude, taking a sip of tea in what seems to be an attempt to hide the faintest hint of a smile that briefly dances across her face. “Well, it’s your funeral. Which, by the way, was very tasteful.”

“Was it?” says Gerry, clearly intrigued.

“I have no idea,” says Gertrude, “I didn’t go. Now. What was I… ah, yes. Jon. You must have questions. Some serious ones, preferably.”

“Right,” says Jon, still feeling distinctly out of his depth, “I- yes. I do. Erm, let me just…” he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tape recorder, clicking it on. The familiar whirr of tape in the machine calms him a little, and he clears his throat. “Alright. So. Statement of Gertrude Robinson, regarding…” he glances around the room, “Uh, regarding her current living situation. Statement taken directly from subje-”

Gertrude reaches across the table and clicks the tape recorder off. “No, I don’t think we’ll be having any of that, Archivist.”

“Um,” says Jon. “Well- but-”

“No statements.”

Jon frowns, and leans in. “ _Tell me_ about this place,” he says, imbuing his voice with the inexorable power of compulsion.

Gertrude reaches across the table and pops the tape out of the recorder entirely. Without breaking eye contact, she slowly begins to unspool the ribbon, pulling it out into long dark strands that coil over the tabletop, and gather around her mug of tea. “I’m afraid that won’t work here.”

Jon just stares at her for a long, long moment. Eventually he manages to splutter out a rather faint, “Why?”

“For the same reason that the tape recorder didn’t turn on automatically - because you don’t want it to.”

“Wh- no, I mean, I guess I don’t care if the tape turns itself on or not, but I definitely did want to compel you. I want a statement, I need-”

“No, you don’t.” Gertrude waves a dismissive hand at Jon’s baffled expression. “Or, rather, perhaps you do, in this specific instance, want to compel me. But more broadly, you nurture a hope that perhaps you could… go back. Be human again. Release yourself from the Eye and the trappings of its powers while retaining your selfhood and your life. Yes?”

“I… suppose I do. Yes.” Jon frowns. “How do you know that, if our powers don’t work here? And- and what is ‘here’, anyway?”

Gertrude claps her hands together and grins. “Ah, now, there’s a good question – two good questions, actually, but I think I’ll start with the second, and that might help you answer the first.” She steeples her fingers and regards Jon carefully over the top of her glasses. “What do you think this place is?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I can’t Know so I don’t… you understand.”

“Now, come along, Jon,” says Gertrude, fixing him with a stare that any overly strict head teacher would be delighted to possess, “you’re a smart man. You ought to work on your own capacity for deduction, and then maybe you won’t be so reliant on the Eye to function, hmm? If you lean on Beholding every five seconds to Know your arse from your elbow, how on earth will you manage to function if and when you do actually get the world fixed up?”

“I-”

“That was a rhetorical question. Now, let’s focus, please. Go on, tell me what you think this place is.”

“I- um. Right. Yes. Well… alright. Ok. I suppose… Martin and I found a place a little like this a while back, and- and Melanie and Georgie are somewhere I can’t quite See, too, so… you have an artifact of some sort, maybe? Something that stops the powers from being able to perceive this place, that keeps it normal, or mostly normal. It’s – this must be a place that’s outside of the domain of any of the powers.”

Gertrude leans back in her chair, nodding slowly. “You’re wrong, of course-”

“Oh, thanks.”

“-but you’re on the right track. So, you see, knowing things without Knowing them really isn’t all that hard, if you put your mind to it. But no, we’re not outside the domain of all the powers. Nothing is – certainly not in this new world, anyhow.”

“Oh, stop beating around the bush, Gertrude,” says Gerry, pulling a chair up and taking a long swig of coffee. “The point is that it’s not outside the domain of the powers because it _is_ the domain of a power.”

Jon freezes, suddenly feeling the familiar creeping fear coil back into his chest. “Which one?”

“Something new,” says Gertrude.

“An emergence,” agrees Gerry. He bumps his coffee mug against Jon’s with a friendly smile. “Something good, though, or- I mean, as good as it gets at the moment, anyway. You don’t need to shit yourself about it, I promise.”

“Language, please,” says Gertrude.

“ _Language please_ ,” mimics Gerry, “as if I’ve not heard curses out of you that I didn’t even know were words.”

“An emergence,” murmurs Jon, “What- the Extinction? This doesn’t seem much like a place which-”

Gertrude scoffs. “No, obviously not. Though I should think that might well be getting itself off the ground too, given the current situation with the, ah, apocalypse.”

Jon blinks. “Then what…”

Gerry puts a foot up on his chair, ignoring Gertrude’s glare of displeasure, and rests his elbow on his knee. “Here’s the thing. Back in the old world, reality was fairly static, right? And humans were in the majority. The powers were strong, sure, but they were actually pretty limited in terms of how much they could affect our reality. But this whole reality is full of them, so that changes things – more of them, more of _their_ fear, right? So you have to ask yourself – what would the powers themselves be afraid of?”

“Each other?” says Jon.

“Well, yeah,” says Gerry. “A bit of that, I guess. But, more importantly – hope. Right?”

Agnes leans over the back of Gertrude’s chair, pressing an absent-minded kiss to the top of her head before interjecting; “No, no, that’s not it at all. It’s about balance, not about what they fear – I doubt they fear anything at all, to be honest with you. But they’ve become more powerful, so it’s natural that a counter-power would emerge.”

“Balance?” says Gertrude. “No, I rather think it’s more simple than that – you have to consider-”

“Hang on,” says Jon, “sorry, not that this isn’t interesting but- hope?”

“What are you guys talking about?” asks Martin, shuffling past Agnes and Gertrude with an expression of vague confusion.

“Emergence of a new power,” says Gertrude.

“I-” Jon turns to Gerry, palms raised, “Back when you were a book you specifically told me there weren’t any secret powers of love or hope or-”

“Technically I said there weren’t any _that I know of_. Which I didn’t. Also, I’m pretty sure there weren’t, at that point. Like I said – emergence. It’s new.”

“Hang on,” says Martin, “sorry, you’re telling me that me and Jon have to work for evil fear gods, and you guys get to sit in a nice little cottage and embrace the power of love? That’s so unfair.”

“It _is_ a bit unfair, actually,” says Jon. “I mean, especially since I was only trying to get an archiving job. That’s what started this. It all feels a bit-”

“Life’s not fair,” says Gertrude. “Stop moping.”

Agnes swats her lightly on the shoulder. “Life being unfair is why we should be kind to people when we can.” She gazes over toward Jon and Martin, a soft sort of sadness in her eyes. “If it helps, something I’ve learned about destinies is that there’s always a way out of them. It’s just that the way out might not be all that much better than the destiny itself.”

“No,” says Martin, his voice pitching up slightly with exasperation, “actually that doesn’t help!”

Agnes nods solemnly. “Yes, that’s probably fair enough. It’s a bit of a grim prospect. Sorry.”

Martin sighs. “No, it’s not your fault. It’s just a crappy situation. You seem very nice – even if you do have pineapple in some of your muesli.” He wrinkles his nose.

“Oh,” says Jon, “so it’s fine on pizza, but god forbid somebody put it in a breakfast cereal?”

“That,” says Martin, drawing himself up to his full height, “is completely different.”

“It’s not-” Jon cuts himself off with a shake of his head. “Right, no, not the point. Can we loop back to the bit where you guys are all – what, avatars of a new power which might actually be a good thing for humanity?”

“Good is a strong word,” says Gertrude. “And ‘avatar’ suggests a level of power I rather doubt any of us has yet achieved.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” says Gerry, gesturing emphatically with his _World’s Best Goth_ mug, “but you seriously need to lighten up.”

“I’m being pragmatic,” says Gertrude.

“You’re being grumpy,” says Agnes, stroking a fond hand through her hair. “Drink your tea.”

Gertrude glowers into her teacup, but does as she’s told.

“See, now that’s an impressive power,” says Gerry, blithely ignoring the withering stare that Gertrude shoots in his direction.

“You said you’d found another place like this,” says Agnes, her hand now absent-mindedly smoothing over Gertrude’s shoulder. “Was it far from here?”

“Oh, a little way,” says Martin, “but it’s a walkable distance, I think. Well. Actually, it definitely is, I guess, since we walked it.”

“I’m not entirely sure I’d call it a 'place like this', though,” says Jon, “I mean, it was more just somewhere the powers couldn’t see. Something to do with… I can’t remember exactly. An artifact, Salesa had right, Martin?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“I mean, not every avatar knows they’re an avatar,” says Gerry. “And Salesa... yeah, I could see that. His place might be more similar to here than you think. Who else was there - anyone we’d know?”

“Oooh,” says Agnes, “Yes, who did you see? I know Gertrude has been holding out hope that Adelard might turn up one of these days-”

“He won’t,” says Gertrude. “He’s dead.”

“So were you,” says Gerry, cheerfully.

“You were,” says Martin, “I saw your corpse, actually. Erm, I mean – I found it. In the tunnels.” He’s starting to look a little pale at the thought. “It was really horrible, actually. I mean, not- um, I’m sure you’re very nice, and stuff, you know, but the actual corpse – with all the blood and the way it was sat there and the bullet holes and it-”

“Yes,” says Gertrude, “well, I think that’s enough of that, thank you.”

“Oh, right, yes, sorry,” says Martin.

Gerry leans in with a grin. “No, Martin, please – I’d love to hear more about how gross Gertrude’s body was. Keep talking.”

Gertrude purses her lips, “No thank you, Gerard.”

“What?” He throws his hands in the air. “I just wanted to check nobody had, you know, desecrated your corpse or anything. Peeled it, maybe. Turned bits of it into a book.”

She sniffs. “You’re going to have to drop that eventually.”

“Yeah! Eventually! But not today.”

“Somebody did peel her, actually,” says Martin. “They dug her up and skinned her and then an evil clown turned her into a dance costume.” He claps his hands over his mouth. “Sorry! Sorry Ms Robinson, I just- it just slipped out, I didn’t mean to-”

Gertrude sighs. “No, no, that’s quite alright. I’m sure you’ve made Gerard’s day with that little nugget of wisdom, even if you’ve rather put me off my tea.”

“You really have,” says Gerry, pretending to wipe away a tear of joy, “I could kiss you, Martin, honestly, I could.”

Martin goes very pink. “Oh, um, thank you but… also no thank you, if it’s all the same to you.”

Jon elbows him in the side, and mutters, “See, now we both have a goth to be jealous of! Isn’t that nice?”

“Oh, shit,” says Gerry, “Wait, are you two…?”

“Ah!” says Jon, “Right, yes, sorry, introductions – Gerry, this is my boyfriend, Martin, and Martin, this is Gerry, who I became friends with after I agreed to burn him to, uh, well, to his second death.”

“I got better,” says Gerry, with a distinctly disappointed shrug.

“Yes, you all seem to have done,” says Jon; “How?”

“No idea,” says Agnes. “We have some theories, of course, but nobody really seems to agree.”

“No, indeed,” says Gertrude. “We know that everyone in the village who’s been dead at some point seems to have been… affiliated with a power, in some way, during their life. Some of them where killed by one of the powers, others were avatars, others…” she shrugs. “Archival assistants certainly seem to make the cut, let's put it like that.”

“So why you think Dekker wouldn’t make it is honestly anyone's gue-” begins Gerry.

Gertrude cuts him off. “Because he wasn’t actually especially affiliated to any power – he was even better at avoiding that than me – and because his death was technically by fire, rather than by any supernatural means. And not the Desolation, just… normal fire. No, I rather think that Adelard really has finally got a chance to rest. I might miss- well, I might miss his advice and his ability to procure and store large amounts of plastic explosives at short notice, but I won’t begrudge him that.”

Gerry rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever you say, old lady. Anyway, yeah, point is, pretty much everyone here is-”

“Sorry,” says Jon, “but, when you say ‘everyone’…?”

“Yes,” says Martin, “and when you say ‘village’…?!”

“Oh,” says Gerry, with a vague expression of surprise, “Did you not see round the back? Yeah, there’s a whole village out that way. Quite a lot of people, at this point.”

Agnes nods. “So many more than there were to begin with! The village is getting quite big, actually – we have a duck pond, and everything.”

“Not that there are many ducks there anymore,” says Gertrude, with an expression of deep distaste, “Not since that blasted kayaking club got started. Splashing around at all hours of the day, disturbing the water…”

A loud knock at the door cuts her off, followed by the sound of laughter, and somebody calling, “Walking wounded, let us in!” The voice sounds… oddly familiar, although Jon can’t quite place it.

She sighs. “Oh, speak of the devil.”

Agnes goes to open the door, rolling her eyes as she does so. “It’s nice to have guests.”

“Normally,” mutters Gertrude, “guests are people you invite. And I don’t see why they can’t get their own first-aid kits – this is my house, not a field hospital.”

Then door swings open, and Tim walks in, wearing a violently pink Hawaiian shirt and a shit-eating grin. “We’ve got a serious splinter going on, here – not sure if the patient will make it- holy shit, Martin!”

The short, bright-eyed woman he has an arm around shuffles through the door beside him and beams. “Martin! And Jon! Oh, it’s so good to see you both, I-”

As soon as she says Jon’s name, Tim’s smile drops, replaced by a narrow-eyed glare as he turns toward him. “Jon,” he says, lip curling slightly.

The woman elbows him. “Tim, don’t be rude.”

“You weren’t there for all the-”

“I know, but I’ve heard you talk about it and I know you know that it got very stressful for _everyone_ toward the end. Yes?”

Tim groans. “Yes. Sure. Whatever. Hi Jon. I guess.”

The woman elbows him again, harder this time. “Say something nice.”

“Fine. I love to see my asshole boss who got me killed sitting around in the one fucking place in this hellscape where things are supposed to be actually nice. Is that any good?”

“Nice to see you too, Tim,” says Jon. “I mean- actually, really nice. I know we didn’t always see eye to- well. Um.” He sighs. “It’s nice to see you doing well. After the wax museum I-”

“Urgh, I really don’t want to hear it. Anyway, genuinely nice to see you, Martin – still stuck working for this dickhead, huh?”

“Oh,” says Martin, “no, um, we’re dating now, actually.”

Tim’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “You- really?” He turns to Jon, and after a moment, nods slowly. “Punching above your weight there, boss. All I have to say on that.”

“I know,” says Jon, just softly. “I know.”

“It really is so good to see you guys,” says the woman, waving cheerily at Jon and Martin. “We must have so much to catch up on. I’ve missed you!”

Jon looks her up and down, trying to wrack his brain and recall where he’s seen her before. She does look… sort of familiar? But he can’t work out when they met. Maybe she gave a statement? That might be it. She’s short, with long dreadlocks tied into a ponytail, and a brightly coloured cardigan over the top of a shirt that he’s pretty sure must be Tim’s, given the print and how huge it is on her. “Do… do we know you?”

“Erm,” says Martin, “I mean, I’m sure we do, uh, but maybe if you just- could you give us a little refresher? Probably totally obvious once you say. I’m sure we-”

“Oh!” says the woman, and she laughs, “Right, yeah, I forgot. I have to introduce myself. Ha! This is weird. Uh, hi Jon, hi Martin – it’s me, Sasha.”

It takes a moment, but there’s a very strange feeling in the back of Jon’s mind – like a curtain abruptly being pulled away to reveal something that had somehow been there all along, despite being unseen. And, just like that, he… remembers. “Sasha,” he says, his throat suddenly feeling tight, as though he’s about to cry. He doesn’t, though - instead, he nods stiffly and grits out an only slightly wobbly; “I- it’s- hmm. Good to see you.”

“Sasha!” says Martin, who has no such reservations about crying, and he bounces across the room to wrap Sasha up in a hug, lifting her half off the ground before he pulls Tim into it too.

Jon hesitates – Martin and Sasha are both snotty-nosed and babbling happily to each other, but Tim has his eyes locked right on Jon, and he doesn’t look especially happy with him. Which… is probably fair. But, after a moment, he rolls his eyes, and gestures Jon over to join the hug.

He leans in as Jon wraps his arms around the three of them, and whispers, “I’m only inviting you over here because I know you hate hugs, ok?”

Jon nods, keeping his voice low. “Of course. I… thank you, Tim.”

And Tim, just for a fraction of a second, grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lesbians I was INCORRECT about the chapter in which nasty gremlin door wife would turn up, for which I can only APOLOGISE HUGELY but sadly I'm extremely bad at guessing word counts so uh... bonus third chapter to follow shortly
> 
> cheers to everyone who's commented or left kudos, I really do appreciate it and I hope you all have amazing days ^_^


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